Another quote from a song that I just love every time I hear it (Don't Dream it's Over by Crowded House):

There is freedom within, there is freedom without;
Try to catch the deluge in a paper cup...

I was just lying in bed when some thoughts occurred to me, mostly ones I had had before, but also new ones that I never pieced together, spliced together, or realized in certain ways before. Unfortunately, not all of it is fit to post for one reason or another at this moment, but I wanted to preserve my little Logic Muse in time. Paper seems ill-fitted compared to my revered and respected, self-important web site. I do so hate inopportune times for my mind to kick into Realization Gear, when new thoughts push forward connecting minor details into what can be finally recognized as a pattern; much like how I imagine the first astronomers felt when they drew together the first constellations; the epiphany that can so easily be lost when writing/recording materials are not at hand to capture the tendrils of my mind before they slip away into whatever obscure corners of my neuro-webbing such lost thoughts go.

part 1: old lessons vs new lessons and the ability to strip away a biased (Chr.) slant and still have a poignant message. Great ability, and one that is missed.

part 2: a pair of moments experienced at nearly the same time in high school about insincerity of common and personal faith; flakiness; as well as the then-realized fallibility of my own belief structure based around a statement about what is required to live (food, water, etc...). My first memory of such thinking; but is not a fault of the speaker. It was bound to happen based upon my own ideals, practices, thoughts, personality, and everything else that would take my whole life to revoice (nature vs nurture). Likened to a nice-to-look-at house of cards where one section unexpectedly collapses. Subsequent investigation into why it collapsed calls into question the entire structure, which is poked, prodded, fallaced, and soon brushed away to leave but the table; the underlying foundation and structure. Legs are kicked: seems sturdy. Hand glides over the table, evaluating it, realizing it, affirming it. Soon, new blocks are brought to the scene, some rejected, others poked, examined, placed on the table in various forms, some reset to form new walls, a new house, a firmer house. No mere cards, but quality-tested building materials. Something that isn't just there without having been tested and prodded and pushed to the limits; isn't built by placing a few cards, then upwards with no more thought to what was underneath; but that has been revised, re-established, and accepted.

Now that that is over and I feel assured that I have enough here to spark my Muse again at a later date, I feel much more at ease, and I hope I do no more thinking tonight or I surely will not sleep well!

I was reading through my own post below just a bit ago, and I've come up with a theory. I was contemplating why people drive so badly, makin bad choices, and then get stressed and pissed about it when things don't go exactly as they planned they would. Do they enjoy being upset? And if not, then why not avoid it?

So, I've come to the theory that we humans are stress-addicted. We're stress-addicted. I mean, it cannot be possible that so many people have no foresight into what might cause them stress. If it causes you stress, evaluate why you do it. Evaluate your benefits, your costs, your risks, and then the stress. Then ask, "is it worth it?" But yet, even if someone deems an act to be worth taking, why do they seem so upset at everyone else? Why do they act surprised and flabbergasted at the consequential stress? I tend to think they knew it would be there, but maybe the "way we're supposed to act" dictates that we make a sitcom performance and act surprised and angry?

Maybe a lot of people cannot go through life without "excitement" and drama....i.e. stress. Maybe that's just not how we're brought up anymore with instant gratification television, soap operas, CNN reporting the next tragedy that didn't happen to us or the neighbor.

Me? I take measures to avoid unnecessary stress...and I do not get why more people cannot do the same. It boggles my mind.

I love driving. I enjoy cruising around now that I have a "pimp" car. My pet peeves about other people's piss-poor driving habits are well-documented in these very web pages. So what naturally is the worst time for my driver pet peeve? Yup, Christmas!

This afternoon on my way home from work at 1pm, I had a total of three incidents that just irk me to no end, plus one on my way to work.

On my way to work there are two common examples of what piss me off about what is so hard about rules that people cannot understand them. When I get off on my exit, there's actually a very long stretch before the exit even starts. But it never fails that someone wants to move over to the right, into the previous entrance ramp so that he/she can run on the shoulder for a while just to be the first one on the exit ramp and maybe pass on the right side....on the shoulder no less. I love those people, because then as they come up to pass me, I can turn my signal light on, and move in properly to cut them off (in a nice, and very lawful way). This happened yet again this morning, and I do get some gratification in putting people in their place. My small sadistic side no doubt. (The other point each morning is at the end of the exit ramp at the stoplight. I turn right there, but there's a bridge to the left with a nice hump in it. People get impatient when you wait at that light more than two seconds before making a right-hand turn. Well, I am in a low car, and cannot always comfortably see over the bridge, plus there's sometimes large SUVs on my left too, further disrupting my view. I am more than comfortable enough with sitting and waiting for a green light in order to be able to turn right, but some people seem to think I'm required to turn there.)

On the way home, I ran into a growing pet peeve of mine: minivan drivers running red lights. It happens all the time in Des Moines. A line of cars gets a protected left turn green light through an intersection as I wait at the head of the line facing them. Invariably, the last few people try to push the red light, and legality, by zipping through while my light is green. Today, just that happened. I am not a guy to compromise with everything, especially when I know I am right. So I tend to get off the starting light right on the green, and basically, legally, start moving. Well, today, some moron in a minivan decides that because there's cars in front of him keeping us back, he can go too. And I gave him the pleasure of getting as close as I could to him without hitting him, hitting my brakes, and giving him a not-quite-rude wave of my hand at his idioticness.

Later, I had the pleasure of another minivan trying to pass a line of us on the right before the two lanes merged. The right lane merges into the left lane, which I was in. So she (in a minivan, did I mention that?) decides that because she has a signal light on, that reserves for her the right to move into a city bus, which she almost did. Don't people plan ahead and just NOT get in a lane that is ending?

The third incident occurs on a road I frequent near home. It has this feature of being a four-lane road for two hours each day, but the rest of the time parking is allowed, although it is sparse usually. Well, yet again this minivan thinks it needs to pass me, and I guess the guy can only see about 15 feet ahead of him, and so almost rear-ends a parked car. He turns his signal light on and ends up waiting for the line again.

I don't know what it is about minivan drivers and/or Christmas. Minivan drivers (especially guys) are already horrid drivers. I swear they have gender-security problems because they're guys driving a minivan, so they think they need to go faster to compensate for a typically "unguy" vehicle. Add in the fact that everyone seems to get so stressed about Christmas shopping and driving, and you've got lots of morons in minivans zipping around like they are the only ones on the road with no other thoughts than their own.

People complain about shopping near Christmas and how bad it is. I complain about driving near Christmas, as well as people's general stress levels. I'm sorry, but a holiday does not, and should not cause me stress. And I think people that fall into the whole holiday stress/bad driving/minivan insecurity groups, are the real misers in this world.

Just wanted to post a quote I heard in a movie just tonight and I found it awesome. The last phrase is tacked on as it was a theme in the movie, although I maybe should leave it off so as not to ruin the beautiful part...

All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.

Actually, to put the quote more in perspective, it is from the movie Blade Runner. It is uttered as the last soliloquoy by the "villain," a cynthetic human manufactured with a pre-ordained "expiration" date. In other words, he was built to only "live" 4 years as a security measure. This quote is preceded with the cynthetic human listing a few of the things he has seen in his short life, sitting on a rooftop in the rain with Harrison Ford. What really makes this quote chilling in the movie, is that he really has tears, and they really are lost in the rain...and right after "Time to die," he expires.